Has anyone had a problem with the sound quality from 'good' replacement speakers in the rear roof location? I'm on the second set, each different and they were both quality, but sounded so poor with the bass, I put back the originals. I have Blaupunkt in the front doors and they are excellent! All the speaker locations are 5.25", I'm running a 240 watt amp, with an eq, and I'm stumped on the rear. Maybe something like they need to have the baffle behind them - the original roof location is not a sealed area as the front doors are...
Any help would be appreciated

What is the wattage for the rear speakers and the front speakers?? Also, what kind of deck do you have w/ specs??? Is it factory or aftermarket?? Do you blow the rear speakers or they just are poor sound?? And last but not least do the factory speakers put out good and not a poor sound or blow???

What is the wattage for the rear speakers and the front speakers?? Also, what kind of deck do you have w/ specs??? Is it factory or aftermarket?? Do you blow the rear speakers or they just are poor sound?? And last but not least do the factory speakers put out good and not a poor sound or blow???

XJ12:
Its all aftermarket, the original lo quality really stunk! I have in dash cd 180 watts, using 2 channels (F) to the eq, the eq has the front to rear fade and seperate ex slides for frt/rear, from there it (4ch) goes to the amp under the seat, 240 watts, and powers the four speakers. The front by otself really kicks, I can feel the bass in my empty stomach! No distortion. The speakers are all the 5.25" to fit, and are at least 200 watt spkrs. I dont have room for a subwoofer, dont need the neighbors on the next block to hear it, and dont want to blow my kids eardrums, but do need crisp clear sound at moderate (to high) volume. The rear has no (NO!) kick or bass, the mids and highs are great. Never blown any speakers, the factory ones still dont sound 'good', I now have audiobahn in the rear. One sound shop guy says its due to the enclosure their in in the upper rear......
Thanks. Jay

The wires may make a diffrence. Running a higher wattage could just over load the wires. I like Pioneer speakers. If you wanna spend alot, you can get qualitly components ans stick the tweeters on the front of the sound bar facing toward you. Thats what I did and I love it. Just some 02

MSHarnett has some good points... I'll add that; if bass is off, make sure you didn't wire one of the speakers out of phase... This will kill bass.

Also, running all the same size speakers, I'd run the 'same' speakers in all 4 corners. As long as their Frequency responce goes down to around 40Hz or lower, you should get some bass from them... Some more expensive speakers only go to 55, 70, or 80 Hz and won't produce the bass very well. They are designed to run with a sub or midbass backing them up.

Also, your running a bypass EQ, make sure it's not taking the bass signal out of the loop to the rears.. You can test this by wiring the pre-outs from the deck strait to the 4channel amp rear channel and seeing if bass suddenly comes out when the EQ is bypassed.

Other things you can do for the bar and pods is to put some Dynamat Extreme inside behind the speaker to help solidify the pods and stop vibraitions. Then spray some rubberized undercoating on any connecting areas (pods) or corners that might vibrate. (don't get it on the outside; can get cans from WalMarts). Some PolyFill might also help to remove some standing waves in the box area. Stuff it lightly, don't pack it tight...

Tripple check the polarity on ALL 4 speakers.. if one is wrong, the sound get's really funky. Run fresh speaker wire to the rear if you need to. For 200W RMS, 14-16 AWG is plenty for 15' of wire ( more than you should need...) I wouldn't go down to 18 AWG though running that much power...

Those are the basics.. Check those items and see what pops up...

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. My MS/Life blog, Audio and Electronic write-ups, project how-tos, pictures, stories, and more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirGCal

If you can't take a nano-second to press shift/period/etc. and make proper sentences and paragraphs, I don't know if I can take a few minutes to respond to your topics... It doesn't have to be perfect by any means, but a little effort goes a long way.

Da#$it... I did a whole post on "ohh, I just noticed it's an XJ..." and the forum crashed on the post... I don't feel like going through all that again so here's the highlights...

Same theory applies... Remove rear speakers, put in extreme on metal if able, use rubberized undercoating on the rest in that area and fill with poly. (Careful with undercoating. Don't get on exposed outside surfaces cause it doesn't come off. Use masking tape generiously to protect visible areas...)

You might also consider something like the JL Audio 6W0 6" sub which only uses .175 ft^3 of room (extremely small) and 75W of power and puts out AMAZING bass. This might help if your system is just a little shy on the bass department and you have very little room (they fit in a door even... I have put 3 in a TJ rear seat with nothing exposed at all.. They are Small but potent buggers..) and don't want to wake the neighbors.. They are GREAT for clean, accurate bass filler..

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. My MS/Life blog, Audio and Electronic write-ups, project how-tos, pictures, stories, and more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirGCal

If you can't take a nano-second to press shift/period/etc. and make proper sentences and paragraphs, I don't know if I can take a few minutes to respond to your topics... It doesn't have to be perfect by any means, but a little effort goes a long way.

I barely ever use a EQ going to the speakers....I would try to bypass that...usually you can control that on the deck..I find no need to buy one...The only time I've ever installed an EQ was when I ran it to the subs...Other than that I see no need for it...It's just a quick fix for distortion for the subs....

The wiring is also a big deal...Usually factory is a really thin gauge...I don't know what is in the XJ b/c I have yet to install a system in a XJ even my own...I would go 14-16 AWG like SirGGal said...Make sure it's shielded stereo wire though....It will drain out and block all other sounds from interfering....Worth your money..

You should seal the area also...You can lose some sound if not but not a whole lot...In my XJ i find that my back speakers put out more than my fronts...A quick fix(but this is the sloppy but easiest way) is to take some poly-fil and stuff a ring of fabric....If your wife can sew then that is great...Have her sew a ring like a donut pillow with the cut out of the speaker....Leave some space b/t the rims of the speaker and the ring of poly-fil....I did this with my old truck....It works like a charm...You just put duct tape on the bottom of the fabric and spray adhesive to the duct tape....Put it right around the speaker on the roof....It kept the sound from going behind my panels and sent it straight out....Stopped a lot of vibration too....

If those don't work then I would look at the amp...Your original amp should run all the speakers with no problem....But if you want a little more bump my dad(electronic tech) always told me that the golden rule to speakers is to run an amp that puts out half or little more the wattage of the total ampere of the speakers....

I put polk audio (ok) speakers in the back of my XJ. They sound horrible. I wish I never wasted my money. The $100 infinity's in the front doors ROCK. I can't believe how good even the stock speakers sounded (bass-wise) in the front doors.

I'm going to be getting a TJ and selling my g/f the XJ so I'm going to be taking my speakers with

I put polk audio (ok) speakers in the back of my XJ. They sound horrible. I wish I never wasted my money. The $100 infinity's in the front doors ROCK. I can't believe how good even the stock speakers sounded (bass-wise) in the front doors.

I'm going to be getting a TJ and selling my g/f the XJ so I'm going to be taking my speakers with

Polks are excelent speakers, but need to be carefully purchased. They are made with very tight responce references and are designed to be used with other specific speakers. I'd never use them without a sub.

One other thing would be the fact that you mixxed Infinity's with Polks.. They are notibly not voice compatible; meening that they usually do not sound good together. Voice matching speakers simply means trying to put the speakers high and low responce points and inherent delays in the same area on the speakers. (their actual response) Speakers that are voice matched are designed to work together in such a way that the speaker locations often become invisible and the sound just surrounds you. Though this term (voice matched) isn't often heard in mobile audio circles, the rule still applies. (You can see voice matched labels a lot more in home audio.)

The issue with running multiple brands of speakers in the same setup is that they are often not matched and will not sound the same. One pair might sound bassier or louder making the other pair seem unjustly bassless or softer. Then you get into specific model differences and design which takes this discussion to the next leve. But basically, don't mix and match speakers and expect perfect results is the idea.

Polks are great speakers; when used correctly. I just finished a basic SQ system with a set of them and it was astonishing. The same could have been done with a set of Infinities or Pioneers or Alpines. It's all about design and implementation. Don't discount the speaker due to the environment it's in. I bet they do sound like pookie mixed with Infinities. Infinities are often over-boulstered on the upper mid-high end making them seem more powerful. (Actually, that's one reason I don't use Infinities, far too powerful in the higher frequencies throwing the curve off making them hard to tune for competitions)

Plus, don't discount an entire company just due to a bad experience with one version of one product. The model specifics that you purchased might be WAY off of what you purchased them to do... (often happens when people buy top-of-the-line speakers and try to run them full range when they are designed for tighter control limits) This will cause them to distort and be all muddy. Perhaps you may have been happier with a different polk line for your specific application. Just an example... (Plus, the have some of the best (not rediculiously priced) home audio equipment and I wouldn't want you to miss out on them should you be looking...)

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. My MS/Life blog, Audio and Electronic write-ups, project how-tos, pictures, stories, and more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirGCal

If you can't take a nano-second to press shift/period/etc. and make proper sentences and paragraphs, I don't know if I can take a few minutes to respond to your topics... It doesn't have to be perfect by any means, but a little effort goes a long way.

04jeep
After more reading and speaking with people, the problem is with how their mounted. The fiberglass or plastic thing that holds the rear upper speakers is not attached to anything - it is semi supported by the headliner, and is only anchored with 'butterfly' wings over the windows that hold it up - it kinda floats in the mounting. We all know the speakers need to mounted firmly to create any decent sound, especially bass! The fronts are a solid mount on the door metal and a nice tight enclosure.
I've dropped the headliner and I'm doing a project that angle iron supports the speaker mounts, attaches to the roof sides with screwed metal mounts, and will be air sealed and tight. We'll see what happens.......I'll do a write up on if it works well.

I'm not too sure about the "voice matching". Windows open going 75 on the highway in a loud XJ or TJ isnt' the best environment for the audiophile. I knew the soundbar wasn't a good environment for anythign other than tweeters and didn't want to spend the money to get infinity's all around.

Like everybody else, I use the f/r fader to compensate for volume level differences between 2 sets of speakers.

I'm not putting down the polks at all.. I got 'em because I've used them before and they rocked... which is why I'll be transferring them to my new Sahara